"Why doesn't she age?"

Brooke Greenberg is the size of an infant, with the mental capacity of a toddler.

She turned 16 in January.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Health/story?id=7880954&page=1

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The use of the term “aging” here is deceptive and isn’t being used appropriately, in my opinion. From my reading of that very generalised non-specific non-scientific article, it’s not that she isn’t aging but rather she isn’t developing. There’s a big difference.

Her body isn’t following the normal developmental progression, but that doesn’t mean that her cells aren’t aging in the normal fashion. Her abnormal developmental condition doesn’t mean that her lifespan is any different to a normal person. In fact, I’ll wager it turns out to be a lot less (poor thing

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From the pictures it seems to me that she IS aging, but just not developing normally.

 

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Dang Herc, you beat me to it

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As I was looking through the pictures I noticed that one was of Brooke's "Bat Mizvah"

That explains it. Genes.

 

Meaning ? :bugeye:

 

:bugeye:

Wow...and nobody knows why? Hormones...nerve system...? I wonder if her mental stage is really just at the level of a toddler. Maybe she's just unable to "express" it. Anyway, I feel sorry for the parents. They'll never see her grow up, getting a job, found a family and what not.

And what the Hell has "Bat Mitzvah" to do with "explaining it; genes"?

 

My dad's first wife's half-siblings all had a similar condition. Beautiful children, although they had very short lives. The son lived to be 2 and the daughter lived to be 8. My dad always referred to this as "blue baby syndrome," although I don't know the reason why.

Like Brooke, they were small, very attractive, and about as developed as toddlers. They were caucasian/Western European like this family, too.

 

It looks like he's saying that Jews have weak genes or something.
If he really did mean that it borders antisemitism.

 

Does anyone notice a certain mark on the upper part of her left brow? What is that from?

Also notice her head shape...it reminds of a Down's Syndrome

 

What mark..?? This is her other photos:

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/popup?id=7881955

 

Assuming goodwill then I wouldn't say that it's anti-Semitism, but I'd like to see some proof about "Jews having weak genes" because I've never heard of this "theory" before.

But if I look at his comment from a more negative stance then I'd say you're right; it was borderline anti-Semitic.

I guess I'll give him the benefit of doubt since I have no clue about his post history.

 

the idea/theory of weak-genes in Jews is more prevalent to the study of the Ashkenazi jews who exhibit an unusually high statistical disease/disorder in their gene pool such as: Tay-Sachs Disease, Canavan Disease, Niemann-Pick Disease, Gaucher Disease, Familial Dysautonomia, Bloom Syndrome, Fanconi anemia, Mucolipidosis, and Cystic Fibrosis.

Denial of such weak-genes is a current practice amongst scientists to avoid racial tensions associated with this study.

 

Wow, that's quite a bunch of illnesses. Interesting. Could it be that their genetic susceptibility for those disorders is caused because of them having the tendency to stick to their own folks when it comes to reproduction?

 

You mean inbreeding? Aren't Jews pretty much the most dispersed people around?
Besides, when a guy marries a Jewish girl the children will be Jewish.

 

Yeah, something like that. Well, I was particularly referring to the Ashkenazi Jews. They may be dispersed all over the globe but they still have the tendency to stick to their ethnical group. Of course I may be wrong...I haven't particularly paid attention to the Jewish lifestyle.

 

I don't know either. Perhaps Algernon can enlighten us, if he dares.

 

I am not anti-jewish, I have a lot of Jewish friends.

Being that I work in health care, in my studies there are always a lot of diseases that are exclusive to Jewish populations. As much as we would like to say that humans are equal, we cannot deny that our racial characteristics (or to be PC ethnicity) are an expression to some degree our genes. Certain statistical information tends to point towards these trends, e.g. Philipino's seem to have a greater tendency to develop disseminated Coccidiodomycosis, or that Hepatitis B is prevalent amongst Chinese people, or that Sickle Cell heterozygous gene carriers are predominant in areas in Africa where mosquitos/malaria are endemic. Dragon hit it spot on with his post, and it seems, or so from what I've learned, that because of the general cultural trend of certain Jewish communities that there is a limited gene pool, and this tends to point towards a higher chance of amplifying certain recessive genes that are not normally expressed in diverse or larger gene pools, the famous example being the Jewish community called "Ashkenazi" Jews. One of my coworkers has the X gene, and he mentioned that came with diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart problems later on in life, but made a little joke saying that his kids might not have that since he married an asian woman.

Even though my intention was to make aware the possible scientific reasoning behind her condition, I admit it was a bit cynical of me to stereotype her condition with ethnic genetics. Actually, this girl could prove very helpful to science and quite possibly be able to find a treatment for her condition, seeing that she also has what seems like at least 2 healthy sisters and family to take care of her.

 

Please cite your source. You’ve obviously copy&pasted this from somewhere.

Rubbish. You wouldn’t have any idea what “current practice” amongst biological scientists is, so don’t speak for us.

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There is nothing "racially tense" about a factual population genetics study published in a peer-reviewed journal (if, in fact, this is where you found this information). The only racial tensions that might arise is due to people on internet forums who want to push agendas.

“Weak genes” is not a scientific concept and wouldn’t be used by geneticists in this context. A disease-associated allele is not necessarily “weak” in any way. (In fact, often disease can be the result of “strong” alleles, ie. an allele that codes for an overactive protein.) High incidences if a disease(s) in an ethnic group is due to population genetics, ie. the frequency of relevant alleles. It’s nothing to do with ‘weakness’.

 

Yes, it was. :bugeye: On the very limited information available from the mass-media news story provided, there’s absolutely no basis to invoke an ethnicity-based genetic cause to her condition.